Posted
by
timothy
on Monday September 06, 2010 @10:00AM
from the amazing-fun dept.

MojoKid writes "Remote-controlled helicopters are not new, but Parrot's AR.Drone Quadricopter is set to make a splash when it goes on sale on Sept. 9th. It will use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a controller, and give a live video feed from two different cameras to the pilot. Each model comes with two hulls, one of them for indoor use, with protective loops around the rotors. The device creates its own Wi-Fi network, which the iOS device connects to in order to control the Quadricopter."

We should also mention that the control software for the AR.Drone is Open Source; while it only currently runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch, versions for Android and other devices should be forthcoming.

Android's version is ready. There is a problem however with Android not officially allowing ad hoc connections (which are used to connect to the drone), hence a stock android phone cannot be used. A rooted version does, however. More here: https://projects.ardrone.org/boards/1/topics/show/452 [ardrone.org]

Well keep us posted on it! If you haven't already set up one of those blog-journal things here on slashdot, now is the time.

I have a rather nice Android phone and would love to get one of these drones working with it. The video feedback part is simply awesomeness. I am hoping for some sort of high definition version that will basically let me make some terrific videos and effects.

Also, I guess it goes without saying, that these devices could have some interesting uses in rescue, law enforcement and in mi

Neither did you understand that the iPod touch, iPad or iPhone displays video taken from the drone, streams it over WiFi, and displays it on the screen. Technology that you cannot put together for $5. Imbecile.

It is a common error to evaluate flying like walking. If you think of flying is like sailing, only the medium is a lot thinner, and is in 3 dimensions. Then things start to make sense. A simple breeze could veer this drone quite a bit off course. Personally, I wish that the Android could fly it also...

Yep many (not all) electric helicopters don't have that much power and can't fly that fast - if they did they wouldn't be safe for beginners (and flying those in small indoors spaces would take more skill).So just a brisk outdoor breeze would be faster than their top speed, hence they'll be blown away...

I have an esky lama v3, and it's fun, but more hassle to fly. So I actually fly a smaller helis indoors. Cheap and fun. My latest is a "jin xing da" model 331 heli. It even has an accelerometer ("gyro"), so

Note that these quadcopters are quite dangerous. The brushless motors turn the propellers into saw blades. Youtube is full of videos showing deep cuts from even small RC planes with puny motors. If you fly this thing into a person, fun's over.

If you make it out of childhood without one deep cut, broken bone, or serious concussion, you're not really ready to be considered an adult yet.

Some parts of life are dangerous. We have to learn to deal with and accept this when growing up. This particular example doesn't even seem life threateningly dangerous. Just get-some-stitches or maybe worst case lose-a-finger dangerous.

I mean, yeah, getting hit with one looks like it wouldn't be fun, but it's not as if he almost died. He also was running the motor and the prop without having it anchored to anything.

If you or your children are going to work/play with power tools, electronics, chemistry, or other form of engineering, you need to know what precautions to take to safely use your equipment and what the risks are when something fails.

In this case about the worst case scenario is loss of control resulting in somebody to get some

1) they have a forum. The forum server they use is not configured correctly. Trying to get them to configure it correctly (with sendmail logs, etc) results in silence, or answers that shows an inability to even understand the simplest of MTA or debugging concepts.